Govt to review the decentralisation process

26/09/09

Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru
THE government is to review the decentralisation process, after the 20 years of its implementation, as a way of deepening local level democracy and accelerating grass-roots development and empowerment.
Consequently, a broad national stakeholders consultation on decentralisation would be undertaken to examine the conceptual issues, review the 20 years of implementation of the assembly system and make proposals for the way forward.
The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh, who made this known at a press briefing in Accra98, said the national stakeholders conference would be preceded by a series of events which would provide the relevant impetus and opportunities for a wider range of Ghanaians to contribute to the review process.
That, he said, was in line with the National Democratic Congress’s (NDC’s) manifesto for a ‘Better Ghana’ which sought to deepen and facilitate local level democracy and empowerment and accelerate decentralisation.
“This would be in keeping with the original philosophy of participation underlying the decentralisation effort itself and be in line with the inclusiveness that the Mills Administration wishes to achieve,” he stressed.
Mr Yieleh Chireh said the review was to strengthen the capacity of personnel at the local level, provide more resources and give the elected officials a greater leverage to be able to carry out their development programmes.
He said some legislation such as the Local Government Service Act and the Procurement Act, needed to be reviewed to serve the purpose of strengthening the decentralisation process.
The aim, he said, was to improve sanitation, accelerate development and promote education at the local level.
Mr Yieleh Chireh noted that there had been several studies, reflections and consultations on Ghana’s decentralisation effort over the years, including the activities linked to the preparation of a draft decentralisation policy framework over the past two years.
Besides, there are proposals for reforming local government sub-structures and the conduct of unit committee elections by the Electoral Commission (EC).
Therefore, he said, the government wanted to take advantage of those resources, build on the past, consolidate the gains, enhance efficiency and not re-invent the wheel.
Mr Yieleh Chireh said the review process would provide opportunities for various sections of the population, irrespective of education, gender, geographical location, political affiliation, age or religion to make suggestions on how to improve the decentralisation process.
Besides, he said, the review was an attempt to “rekindle popular interest in local governance and local level democracy”.
The minister said the review process, which consists of four main categories, would be undertaken over a three-month period, from September to December, 2009.
There would be 10 regional level consultations organised by regional co-ordinating councils in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development at which identifiable interest groups would make submissions while the public would be invited to make inputs.
A technical team has already started reviewing relevant reports, including documents on products generated over the last two decades.
There would also be consultations with particular interest groups, namely traditional authorities in collaboration with the National House of Chiefs, women’s groups, Members of Parliament (MPs), to be conducted by the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) and the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS).
There is an ongoing process of inviting and receiving written submissions to dedicated electronic and physical addresses, while people will also be invited to submit written comments during the regional and interest group consultations.
Mr Yieleh Chireh said the intended outputs from the stakeholder review exercises included a consolidated stakeholder review process report, a revised decentralisation policy framework, a second National Decentralisation Action Plan and a memorandum on emerging priorities for the envisaged legislative and constitutional review processes.
He said a technical team was also being convened to ensure rapid collation and analysis of the outputs in order to expedite processes within the envisaged time-frame.
The ministry’s main partner in the review process is the Support for Decentralisation Reform of the German Development Co-operation (GTZ), with GIMPA and ILLS as technical partners.